


Jack of all Hearts

by VioletBlue



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Badass, Dubious Consent, Empathy, Lawyers, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Sexual Slavery, Slavery, Slaves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:20:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24241948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VioletBlue/pseuds/VioletBlue
Summary: Mike Ross isn’t just pretending to be a lawyer. He’s pretending to be a citizen. He’s pretending that he’s free.Another attempt to reframe an entire series as a slavefic. I’m addicted. Help. Stay tuned.
Relationships: Mike Ross/Harvey Specter
Comments: 16
Kudos: 89





	1. Chapter 1

There were a lot of reasons Harvey Spector became a lawyer. The money. The power. The feel of all eyes on him as he marched into a room in a high end Italian tailored suit. The feel of taking that suit off at the end of the day and knowing that he’d kicked ass. Knowing that people would remember his name.

One reason he did not become a lawyer was to sit through hours of interviews of Harvard nerds with acne and old family names that they wielded like batons.

“Donna,” Harvey said, as the most recent reject slunk from the room, “if my next appointment isn’t with a bottle of scotch and not some snotty-nosed punk, I may have to throw said snotty-nosed punk through a window.”

Donna leaned into the room and gave him one of her trademark looks, a combination of amused and withering.

“A bottle of scotch is not going to be very good at taking on cases for you. Or doing your paperwork. You cannot train and mold the young mind of a bottle of scotch.”

“Watch me,” muttered Harvey, but he waved in his 3:30 anyway. 

He heard rustling in the hallway, and at the last minute decided to rise from his desk and look out his window, his back to the new arrival. He knew he cut an impressive figure, silhouetted against the light pouring into the luxury hotel conference room, and he was tired of going easy on these morons. He was ready to see who could actually play the game. 

He sensed rather than heard someone enter the room. Their footsteps were soft, almost ghosting across the floor. Well, Harvey Spector was not someone you could sneak up on.

"Civil liability associated with agency is based on which factors?” he barked before the asshole even had a chance to sit down. There was a long pause. 

“The deviation of the agent from his path, the reasonable inference of agency on behalf of the plaintiff, and the nature of the damages themselves,” came the answer. A clear, confident young male voice. 

Huh. Well the 3:30 guy actually knew his stuff. 

Harvey whirled around, but the room behind him was empty. He glanced around, but the only person there was a slave in a thin khaki uniform emptying the trash bins.

A slave who was, very strangely, making direct eye contact with him.

“Did you just speak to me?” demanded Harvey.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the slave answered. “But you did just ask me a direct question.”

“I…” Harvey trailed off. Technically, he was right. Damn.

“How did a hotel slave know that answer?” he asked instead. 

“I was privately owned for a few years and the family had a law library. I read it.”

“All of it?” Harvey asked, quirking his eyebrow.

“All of it,” the slave responded. 

“Sit down,” ordered Harvey, and the boy responded quickly, although he glanced back at the doorway before lowering himself carefully onto the padded chair in front of the desk. His face was completely blank, although Harvey could see some tension in the way his hands curled over the handles.

“Stock option backdating. Tell me about it.”

“Although backdating options is legal, violations arise related to disclosures under IRC, Section 409A,” he said. 

“You forgot about Sarbanes-Oxley.”

“The statute of limitations renders Sarbanes-Oxley moot post-2007.”

Harvey let out a barking laugh. “I’m not going to lie, you’re a better candidate for my associate than most of the idiots that have been in today. What’s your name?”

“Mike Ross. And I’m the best candidate you’ve had all week.”

“And humble, too,” scoffed Harvey. But inside his wheels were turning. It had been a joke. The idea was laughable. 

Right?

“What kind of work have you done?”

Mike shrugged, an efficient movement. 

“I was sort of a jack of all trades. I was in the factories, I did some agriculture, a couple years as a domestic, and I spent a few years in the fighting pits and six months in a whorehouse.”

His affect was flat, with no trace of self pity or shame. Harvey’s mind immediately leapt to picturing Mike in all those situations, and Mike must have known that, but he didn’t look down or break eye contact. He let Harvey study him. His face was pinched, probably a few calories short of healthy, although the muscles in his forearms were ropy and well-defined. His eyes were blue, cold and calculating. There was something a little unsettling about him. Mike was underfed, overworked, and had the entire system of society against him, but managed to still be just a tiny bit scary. He reminded Harvey of a scrappy dog.

“How long have you been a slave?” Harvey asked. He’d be damned if this kid had grown up enslaved. He was way too cocky, he had to have been socialized free.

“Ten years,” Mike said without missing a beat. “I was sentenced after I sold the answers to an exam when I was twenty. They sent me straight from the dean’s office to the slave training camp.”

“You got a lifetime of slavery for cheating on a test?” Harvey asked skeptically. No way. 

“Yeah, well, healthy, able-bodied young man with no family and no money? Not exactly in society’s best interests to let me go. Free labor is a pretty attractive concept,” Mike said cooly. “And for the record, I only sold test answers because I was trying to keep my grandmother out of the system herself. Not that it worked.”

“I just don’t buy that you got lifetime enslavement for a single fudged test,” Harvey said, letting his eyes bore into the kid in front of him. “If you’re hiding some violent crime, I need to know about it. I’m not going to bring that kind of shit into my workplace.”

“No, you wouldn’t get lifetime enslavement for selling a test,” Mike said, and Harvey could hear the anger worming into his carefully stoic voice. “I was already in debt from two years of school and my grandmother’s medical care. My parents died when I was young and my grandma and I had nothing. We used to beg for food scraps from the wealthy slaves. I hated that I had to stop my education, but I knew it was only a matter of time before the system caught up to us.”

Harvey shifted in his seat. He was no bleeding-heart liberal. But there was no denying that as good as the current slavery set-up was for the economy, he was damned glad he hadn’t been born poor. 

He paused, weighing things out. He carefully considered all the emotions he should be feeling: worry, doubt, moral ambiguity, a million other warning bells that this idea was colossally stupid. Then considered the emotion that he was actually feeling: excitement.

“You think you can do this?” he asked the slave kid in front of him. “You’ll have to pass for free all the time. No freezing up or stuttering. To anybody watching, you have to be an entitled Harvard asshole.”

“I can do it,” Mike said, so clearly and calmly that Harvey was convinced it was true. There was fire in those blue eyes, and he was leaning forward in the chair with an electric level of intensity. 

“Well then, first things first,” he said, his eyes skimming over the cheap fabric sweatsuit that grazed over Mike’s thin frame. “We’re gonna need you a suit.”


	2. Chapter 2

Honestly, it worked better than it had any right to. 

Mike talked, walked, smiled, and snarked like a free man. Like a charming, competent free man. The secretaries loved him, clients trusted him, and even the other senior attorneys complimented Harvey on his choice of associate. 

He was quiet sometimes, surely the byproduct of spending so many years only speaking when spoken to, but he always seemed crisp and calm when called upon for a solution or an insight or even a dry joke. 

Harvey had always been innovative, but he was damn proud of this idea. As long as they were careful, nobody had to know that he technically legally owned his new associate.

Harvey had purchased Mike quietly, ignoring the smirk of the sleazy hotel manager who had clearly come to some incorrect and inappropriate assumptions. He’d had the transfer of ownership documents sealed, and rented a small apartment in his own name that Mike could stay in. He’d purchased Mike a great new Italian wardrobe, set up a grocery delivery service, and even sprung for cable. Mike couldn’t actually get paid of course, so Harvey set up a fake account for Mike’s direct deposit that actually rerouted to Harvey. He felt a little weird when he saw Mike’s paychecks show up on his bank statements, even though he was entitled to them as an owner. He just made sure that Mike always had enough cash that it never seemed suspicious, and gave him some prepaid debit cards as well. It occurred to him that never had a situation been so perfect for a slave to escape, but Harvey also knew that Mike wasn’t stupid. The tracking chip behind his ear, his complete lack of legal documentation, and the small tattoo carefully hidden beneath the starched linen suits would guarantee that he was caught within hours of any attempt.

And so they forged ahead, into a world of early morning coffee, late night whiskey, and a chance for Mike Ross to finally show the world how brilliant he was.

The first wrinkle came about two months in, when a pretty, sweet-looking blond girl walked through the hallways of the office, chatting with an attorney about her case. 

Harvey felt Mike stiffen beside him, then take a quick turn into a nearby conference room. Baffled, Harvey followed. 

“What the hell, Ross? We have a meeting in sixty seconds, what are you doing?”

“That girl, she knows me. I mean, she knew me. From before.”

“What?” Harvey hissed, his stomach sinking. “How?”

“My old owners, the ones with the library. She was friends with the daughter. She would come over for sleepovers.”

“I’m sure she wouldn’t recognize you,” Harvey said, trying to sound reasonable even though his heart was thumping. “That was years ago and, no offense kid, but you were just the slave in the corner. She probably didn’t pay much attention to you.”

“No, she did,” Mike said, his mouth tightening. “She and her friends used to... practice on me. To gain experience for their boyfriends.”

“Ah,” Harvey said, clipped. He heard the click of her stilettos as she trotted down the hall, slightly queasy to think of someone as innocent-looking as her treating Mike that way.

Mike ducked out as soon as her footsteps faded, and his tense face immediately morphed into a carefree smirk as soon as he was in public. It honestly made Harvey a little nervous, how good Mike was at masking every single emotion and hint of tension. The kid was a good lawyer, but a phenomenal actor. In the negotiation, Mike hustled and connived his way into a better deal that honestly even Harvey could have gotten at his age. 

“Let’s celebrate,” Harvey roared, clapping Mike on the back and feeling his small, almost imperceptible flinch, although as usual his face was perfectly relaxed. 

“Renzo’s?” Mike suggested. That place was a dive, but the kind that men in sport coats still frequented. A burgers and beer kind of place, where you might take a client who wanted to play up his blue color roots but still could afford half a million in billables. 

They were halfway into their greasy, goddamn delicious meal when Mike stood up abruptly. 

“Toilet,” he said airily to Harvey. He hurried off, looking around a little furtively. 

Huh. That was interesting. 

Harvey gave him seven minutes before beginning to look for him. He knew he couldn’t have left the restaurant because their table faced the only entrance and exit. Unless, maybe he’d snuck through the kitchens?

Feeling a little panicked that he’d let Mike out of his sight for so long, Harvey stuck his head in the bathrooms and then scanned the scattered tables, not even surprised that Mike was nowhere to be seen. He headed for the kitchens, breaking into a little jog that turned heads at the tables around him. If that little bastard had tried to run on Harvey, he was gonna kill him. Sure, the tracking device would find him eventually, but the jig would be up and Harvey’s career would be finished…

The kitchens held no sign of him, although the head cook was angry at his intrusion and the kitchen slaves ogled at the sight of Harvey striding through the chaos of the prep line. He swore under his breath and headed out the main entrance. He hurried around the perimeter of the building, the rage building with every step. 

And then, there was Mike. He was huddled together with one of the kitchen slaves, a tall, dark-haired guy. They were muttering, slouched against the side of the building, backlit by the open kitchen door. The other guy wiped his hands on his apron, then leaned in for a hug. They held on for a few moments, faces buried in each other’s shoulders. Then they pulled away and Mike reached into his pocket and their hands briefly touched before Trevor turned back to the kitchens. 

Hold on. 

Harvey had seen enough drug deals to recognize one. 

Oh, he was going to kill that little shit. 

Mike took a moment leaning his head against the wall, before seeming to collect himself and start to walk back into the kitchens. 

Except he never made it that far. 

Harvey slammed him against the bricks. 

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he snarled, pulling Mike into the darkness, away from the kitchen door. 

Mike’s eyes flashed, but he didn’t make a sound or resist as Harvey dragged him around to the far side of the building. Harvey shoved him again against the wall and Mike just closed his eyes, fists clenched by his side, waiting for the hit. 

Harvey was an asshole, but not a beat-your-slave-in-an-abandoned-parking-lot kind of asshole. He settled for taking several deep breaths and walking in circles, hands in his hair. When the beating didn’t come, Mike opened his eyes and looked at Harvey warily.

“So you’re selling drugs now?” Harvey said when he had enough self control to not deck the kid right then and there. “After all I do for you, you want to jeopardize both of our futures by selling fucking drugs in public? You been doing this since day one? Was this your goddamn plan all along?”

“It’s only been Trevor, I swear,” Mike said, and there was... actual fear in his voice. Mike had never seemed afraid of Harvey before. He was pressed up against the wall, his eyes tracking Harvey’s every movement. That was enough to douse Harvey’s anger, and he suddenly felt a rush of embarrassment at having lost control. 

“I’m not selling drugs, I just owe Trevor,” Mike was talking quickly, trying desperately to diffuse the situation. “Gabe from accounting offered to smoke weed with me, and I stole a joint from him. He didn’t even notice. I swear I’ll never do it again.”

Harvey shuddered, trying to wrap his head around the situation. 

“Who the hell is Trevor? You know what, never mind. We’re going back to my place. You’re going to tell me absolutely everything. Capiche?”

Mike nodded shortly, then exhaled deeply and turned to go to the car. 

The ride to Harvey’s apartment was silent, filled with the smell of the leftover fries in the backseat and tension you could cut with a knife.

“Do you promise to truthfully answer every question I ask you?” Harvey demanded, after they were in armchairs with tumblers of whiskey in his living room. Mike looked uncomfortable sitting there, perched on the edge of the chair with his back hunched. The cocky, arrogant hot-shot lawyer of the work day was gone. This Mike was more subdued, more tired-looking, and much more real.

“I’ve never lied to you,” Mike answered in a low voice, and Harvey’s well-trained bullshit detector could tell that was true. He did trust Mike, on some level that he himself didn’t understand. 

“Who is Trevor?” barked Harvey. 

Mike took a deep breath. 

“Trevor and I met in slave training. We spent a lot of time together, stitching up each other's wounds, but we didn’t really bond until after we were sold to the same place, a shirt factory.”

Mike’s face twisted and he paused. Harvey had to acknowledge that for a man who rarely spoke two words together about his past, this monologue must be incredibly hard for Mike. He refilled his glass.

“We would all sleep in the same big room full of cots after our shifts, and there was always just one night guard. This asshole named Kyle. He was a complete piece of shit, and he drank on the job.” Mike took another, shaky deep breath. “He took a special interest in me, which meant ... a lot of things. But basically, one night he was kicking the crap out of me. He was going too far. And I realized he was going to kill me.”

“I was surrounded by slaves, but none of them were doing anything. What could they do? This shit happened every night. I could tell they were scared for me, but nobody made a noise or moved a muscle. But Trevor, he dragged himself from three rows over. He’d been beaten pretty badly that day himself, so he couldn’t move very fast. But he got to me and…” Mike trailed off. Harvey held perfectly still and waited.

“He climbed over me,” Mike said. His voice caught. “He draped himself over me so that he was absorbing all the blows. He distracted him and Kyle turned his attention to hurting Trevor before he got bored and wandered off. I have no doubt that Trevor saved my life that night.”

Harvey didn’t speak for a moment. He had to wait until he was sure his voice wasn’t going to break or tremble, and he didn’t want to put the burden of comforting him on Mike. Not after what he had just heard.

“What was Kyle’s last name?” Harvey asked, forcing his voice into its usual lawyerly silk. “I need to make sure he never works, or possibly walks, again.”

“No need,” Mike said blankly. “He was fired the next morning. The foreman was pissed when he came and found both Trevor and I unable to sit up without help, much less complete our shift. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kyle is in the slavery system himself now.”

Harvey was feeling dizzy. The silence stretched and Mike’s face darkened and he didn’t know what to do. “And so now you owe Trevor what? Drugs? Money? A lifetime of loyalty? You can’t keep taking care of him forever.”

Mike frowned and Harvey saw a glimpse of that powerful, steely anger that sometimes rose to the surface when Mike allowed it to. “Look, the story I just told isn’t even that unusual. It’s just the one that Trevor and I happen to star in. But if you haven’t been through shit like that, you don’t know. Of course you don’t understand why I’m loyal to Trevor. You couldn’t.”

Harvey had no answer. He changed tacks. 

“Why are slaves smoking pot anyway? It can’t help with being alert or staying out of trouble. Did you smoke when you were, you know… before?”

“You spend all night getting a stranger’s dick shoved in your ass, and tell me you wouldn’t want a little something to help you relax.” 

It was Harvey’s turn to flinch.

He had to admit that he and his scotch knew a little something about that. About deadening reality, just for a bit. But Harvey was usually dulling the sting of humiliation, or sometimes older, darker memories of childhood. He was never trying to block out something as horrific as what Mike had lived through for ten years.

It was an honest-to-God miracle that the kid wasn’t a meth addict.

He suddenly didn’t want the rest of his drink. He set it next to Mike’s, which was similarly untouched. 

He took a moment to gaze at Mike, who was looking ashen and more exhausted than Harvey had ever seen him. Then again, Harvey had never before threatened him with physical violence and then forced him to relive his darkest memories. He felt as shitty as Mike looked. 

“Why don’t you take the guest bedroom tonight? We can stagger our commute times tomorrow morning so nobody suspects. I have a spare toothbrush.”

Mike gave him a long look, then shrugged and nodded. 

Even after Mike was settled in bed, Harvey couldn’t sleep. He felt strange and antsy. The city was sparkling below his window, with its millions of golden winking lights and millions of stories. 

Harvey wondered how many of those stories he’d been blind to in the past. How many tales of pain and injustice had he slept through?

And he had a feeling that if ever there was a wake-up call that could get through to him, it was sleeping in the room across the hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments appreciated! Any suggestions for the direction this takes? :)
> 
> Also, age old question, to slash or not to slash?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: mentions of non-con, alcohol use

“There’s no possible fucking solution,” Harvey said, slamming his palm against the infuriatingly empty folder on his desk. He’d been embroiled in this stupid fucking case for weeks, and he was no closer to figuring this whole mess out. They needed some very important documents to win this case. Those documents were being held up by a complete dipshit college student who refused to help his own father. There was no bribe that Harvey could come up with to entice a spoiled trust fund kid to let go of a schoolboy grudge and actually help out his old man. 

“We could just steal them,” Mike mused, staring out the window. He looked a little tired, but other than that there were no clues that the man in the pale gray suit had any kind of secret at all. 

Mike and Harvey hadn’t talked about the disastrous night of whiskey-fueled confessions since it happened, but there was a slight change in the air. Mike seemed less hesitant to speak up outside of a work setting, and he was relaxing more deeply around Harvey, apparently emboldened by the fact that Harvey did not in fact kick his ass over a smuggled joint.

But there was still a little tightness around Mike, as if he could never forget that Harvey was his master. It was natural, of course. But why did that bother Harvey so much?

“We can’t do that, we’d be caught,” Harvey groaned, leaning back in his chair. 

“Maybe you would be,” Mike said, looking over with an expression of absolutely unbearable smugness. 

Harvey rolled his eyes and drummed his fingers on his thighs beneath the desk. He didn’t know why Mike was so fond of giving those cocky little smirks, and why the sight of them always made him slightly more sweaty than he was before.

Mike took a deep breath and then sat in the chair across from Harvey, not quite meeting his eyes. “Well, the kid hasn’t met me yet.”

“That’s true. And?”

“You could send me in. As a gift to him. In slave clothes, not in the suit. And I could do some reconnaissance.”

Harvey gaped for a moment.  
“Send you in? As a gift?”

Mike gave him a pointed look. “Horny teenager. Submissive slave that nobody thinks to suspect of higher thought processes. Easy to manipulate. Once he’s sleeping off his afterglow, I sneak out the documents.”

“That’s… I can’t do that. You can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Mike challenged in a harsh voice. “Do you want to win the case or not?”

Harvey did not appreciate the kid calling him soft. He would always do whatever it took to win a case. He looked at the facts. Mike was his property, and Mike was willing to use that fact to their advantage. Mike had done this kind of thing before. Slept with people he despised because he had to.

Except. 

He didn’t have to now. 

“Ross, you must think I’m a fucking idiot if you think I can’t figure out this case without using your body as a crutch.”

Mike's eyes flashed. 

“That’s real noble of you,” he muttered, and Harvey tried not to wince at the caustic bitterness in Mike’s voice. “But if you decide to get off your high horse, let me know.”

He stood up and swept out of the office, and even though Harvey’s heart sank, he counted it a small victory that Mike had been able to express his anger so openly. Even if that anger was so very, very misplaced. 

Because it wasn’t pity or protectiveness or morality that had made Harvey shut down that proposition so vehemently. 

No, it was the thought of someone else’s hands on Mike’s pliant body. Mike pinned underneath some unknown figure. Mike on his knees, someone else’s hand in his hair. 

It was something a lot uglier than altruism that kept Harvey from letting some acne-faced brat get his hands on Mike Ross. But he couldn’t entertain those thoughts. He’d bought Mike for his mind, not his body. 

And his mind was an excellent investment. There was no reason to think of anything more. Harvey wasn’t going to exploit him any more than he needed to.  
Or let some slimy kid do that either. 

Harvey banished Mike to the associates cubicles for a few days and figured out how to win the case without the stupid documents. Turns out he just needed a little more motivation. 

Jessica was the closest to ecstatic Harvey’s ever seen her. Apparently the case was even bigger than he thought in her grand strategy for legal domination. He was a little peeved she didn’t tell him the stakes up front, but she did send up a bottle of scotch that cost more than many cars, so he wasn’t going to hold it against her.

Harvey was two drinks deep in his victory celebration when Mike appeared in his office, as suddenly as if he’d popped out of the ground. 

“Mikey,” bellowed Harvey. “Come here. Drink. We just made the firm 18 million dollars today.” 

Harvey tried not to notice how Mike flinched at the loud words, before seeming to steel himself and making his way to the sofa across from Harvey. Okay, maybe Mike didn’t love drunk men. That was fine. Harvey could act sober if he wanted.

He could totally, totally act sober, he told himself sternly. But then his drink made its way to his lips without his conscious permission, and the woodsmoke amber taste was very distracting, and his thoughts were very sloshy right now... and yeah he was not going to be able to act sober. He gave up and took another gulp.  
.  
“What’s wrong, Mikey?” Harvey asked. Mike’s face was all white and pinched, not the normal, easygoing mask he wore at the office. He wondered if Mike was still mad at him for refusing his plan. Or maybe he was embarrassed that he’d suggested it in the first place. But that couldn’t be right. Mike, despite his past, was never ashamed of who he was and where he’d come from. It was one of the things that Harvey respected most about him.

“I’m worried that Louis might make a pass at me,” Mike said shortly. 

“What? Louis Litt?” Harvey barked out a laugh. “That man is creepy and handsy, but I don’t think he’s actually interested in bedding the associates.”

Mike appeared to internally struggle, and damn if Harvey didn’t feel a warmth apart from the whiskey burn in his chest as he watched Mike frown and bite his lip. Mike was usually so charismatic and polished, and so deeply inauthentic. Every little eyebrow furrow, every uncomfortable stammer, was a gift that Mike was entrusting to Harvey, a piece of his real self that he allowed Harvey to witness. 

Harvey would never let him regret that choice.

“If he… does try to hit on me… I won’t know how to respond like a free person. I honestly can’t. When Louis put his hand on my shoulder… I immediately went motionless and stared at the ground. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t realize I was doing it. But it just happened. I don’t think he noticed, because he’s an idiot. But if someone who is actually expecting a reaction tries to seduce me… I can’t do it.”

“Well, it’s not exactly rocket science,” Harvey said, sloshing some more whiskey in his tumbler and trying to keep his voice carefree. “Also, contrary to what you seem to think, I’m not an idiot.”

He pointed at Mike and tried to look severe. And platonic. 

“I know this isn’t really about Louis. Who is it? Is it Rachel? Just do what she does and don’t overthink.” He paused and tried to force out a laugh. “I can’t believe I’m having to explain how to get turned on.”

“Yeah, well, I haven’t had consensual sex in ten years,” Mike spat. “Forgive me if I’m a little rusty.”

Harvey didn’t choke on his drink, but it was a near thing. He felt the mirth drain out of him abruptly.

“I… nothing? Not with another slave, even?”

He was drunk. He knew sober Harvey would be handling this revelation of trauma a lot better. Then again, it’s very possible Mike had come to him because he was drunk, and thus Mike had the upper hand here.

“I was exhausted, constantly,” Mike said shortly. “Some people fooled around after their shifts, but most of us knew to conserve energy and calories, and save it for when we had to.”

Harvey didn’t have anything to say to that. That was logical. Mike had survived by relying on logic. And intellect. Figuring out which rules to follow and which ones to break. Harvey didn’t know how to help him start relying on his hormones instead. That probably wasn’t the safest choice for him anyway, even now.

“I’ll get you out of Louis’ domain,” Harvey said, setting his drink on the marbled coaster. “I’ll say I need you to be in my office. We work on so many projects together, it won’t be suspicious. And if Rachel’s crush makes you uncomfortable, I can figure out a way to keep you guys separate.”

He took a breath and looked at Mike. He was suddenly irritated at the buzz he’d been so enjoying a few minutes before. He tried to get his fuzzy thoughts in order so he could say this next thing, because he needed to say it right. 

“But if you ever do want to be intimate with someone, you absolutely can. You don’t need to ask my permission. You can start a relationship with anyone you choose at any time.”

He was kicking himself that he never thought to clarify that earlier. He just hadn’t even considered it. Mike was an attractive guy, and his intelligence just amplified that. Of course he would be garnering attention. And as long as being with someone didn’t distract Mike from his work, there was no logical reason to stop it. 

There may be an emotional one, but that's besides the point. Suddenly his hands were itching for that drink again.

Mike nodded. “I think it’ll be… probably a while before I’m ready to be able to pass as free in that way. But I’ve just been telling the girls I’m gay and the guys I’m straight.”

“That’s smart,” Harvey said, and Mike shrugged and avoided eye contact. He didn’t ask which one of those statements was the truth. From the sounds of it, Mike might have never been able to explore his sexuality in a healthy way any way. 

“Do you want to crash at my place tonight?” Harvey asked, before his brain quite knew what his mouth was doing. Mike looked at him sharply. 

“I want to celebrate properly. We can order from that Brazilian steak place.”

It wasn’t anything untoward, genuinely. It was just that Harvey didn’t want Mike to be alone tonight. Not like he was now, with his drawn face and hunched shoulders, having just dredged up the memory of unwanted hands on him and the loss of all the choices he’d never had.

Harvey couldn’t do anything about the past. But he could buy the kid a steak. 

Mike hesitated, and for a moment Harvey panicked… would he say yes just out of duty? Or worse, fear? Or would he say no, that being alone with his trauma in a dingy apartment was still better than spending time with his owner, even if he was different from the others?

But Mike just grinned, in a way Harvey had never quite seen before. It wasn’t the too-broad beam of a lawyer with an angle, and it wasn’t the sarcastic grimace of a hurt kid pretending to be fine. It was small, and tired, and soft, and real. 

“I’d like that. Your guest bed is the most comfortable place I’ve slept in my goddamn life.”

“The mattress costs more than the house I grew up in,” Harvey agreed, and Mike rolled his eyes with something like fondness and stood up to go. 

Harvey stood up to follow, privately proud of himself that he wasn’t swaying. Too much.  
As he followed Mike's retreating form down the hallway, he prayed to whatever unfeeling God ruled over New York that he would be able to figure out how to help the kid with more than just an expensive meal and a promise not to abuse him. 

And when he passed Louis Litt’s doorway, he casually darted in and knocked over his vase, watching water soak into the documents, because a little light drunken vandalism against an asshole never hurt anyone.

And Harvey was realizing he’d do a lot worse if it helped that Mike. 

And with that troubling thought, he followed his slave, associate, and potential friend into the elevator, and into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well idk about you guys but I am sure having fun with this fic haha. Drop me a comment and let's chat!
> 
> Also I have no idea how I ever thought this could be anything but a Mike/Harvey fic. It is sooo clear to me now that Harvey is piningggg.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: abuse

At some point, Harvey couldn’t pinpoint exactly when, he stopped measuring the passage of time in months and started measuring it in Mike Milestones. 

There was the first time Mike fell asleep in front of him, curled up in one of Harvey’s chairs like a cat. Harvey threw one of his obscenely expensive knit blankets over the kid and tried desperately to rationalize why the sight of Mike’s peaceful resting face made tears prick his eyes for the first time in years. 

There was the first time Mike belly laughed, his face transforming into such unexpected joy that Harvey wanted to write a letter personally thanking the writers of that stupid sitcom. 

And of course, there was the time that Mike requested that Harvey stop paying for his little apartment, and let Mike move in full time. 

“It doesn’t make sense to waste the money on that piece of shit place,” Mike said firmly, his eyes fixed somewhere above Harvey’s head. “Nobody has ever noticed me leaving in the morning if I take the back exit. We can work on cases more easily in the evenings.”

“Okay,” Harvey said easily, with a mildness that would be unrecognizable to his clients. From the very beginning, he’d always trusted Mike to make the decisions that were best for him. Mike was too smart, with too sharp a survival instinct, for Harvey to start second-guessing him now. 

If sleeping in Harvey’s guest bed, eating his pancakes, and occasionally cracking a wry joke was what was best for Mike, then Harvey didn’t have much to complain about.

But as cozy as their evenings were becoming, Harvey’s days were becoming more disconcerting. Walking around the city with Mike was like having a new pair of glasses. Things that Harvey had always glossed over came into sharp focus. The backhand that sent a girl working in Macy’s sprawling to the floor before her fellow slaves quickly picked her up, their eyes downcast. The slight shake in the hand of the boy selling tickets outside the train station, that belied hours of hunger and cold. Mike didn’t miss a thing. Whatever sharpness and quick insight he brought to the firm, Harvey could see that it had been developed out here. Mike’s eyes were wide open, and his actions were graceful. He might drop half a sandwich near a cowering slave on the street without missing a step in his stride, so that most people would hardly notice. He’d volunteer to throw away Harvey’s half-drunk coffee, except instead of tossing it he’d pass it off to a shivering youth on a leash with such subtlety it seemed like a magic trick.

It was early February when their worlds finally collided with such a dramatic impact that Harvey was left reeling. The snow was ragged and dirty, melting into slushy brown puddles. It was a miserable day, they’d just had a very unproductive lunch meeting with a fussy client on the opposite side of town, and there was a lot to do in the office, so Harvey was so in his head that he didn’t notice the screaming until Mike stopped in his tracks abruptly. Harvey nearly ran into him, but the annoyed comment died on his lips when he saw the reason for the commotion. 

A man in a suit and tie, his face contorted in anger, was swinging a thin metal rod down with significant force. His target was a sobbing girl, hardly more than a teenager, with spots of blood starting to soak into her thin gray cotton slave uniform. Harvey was moving towards her without thinking, a furious yell about to break from his lips when...

“Stop,” hissed Mike, his fingers closing around Harvey’s wrist. Mike initiated physical contact so rarely that Harvey immediately complied, halting in his tracks even though everything in him was screaming at him to stop the horror in front of him. “If you go over there now, you’ll make it way worse for her.”

“What?” Harvey snapped, “I’m not letting this happen in front of me.”

“You do every day,” Mike said bluntly. “You just usually don’t realize it. When he’s done, I need you to distract him long enough for me to help her.”

“I..” Harvey started to protest but at that moment the man in the suit delivered a final blow then kicked the girl in the ribs for good measure. He spat something angrily at her and then massaged his wrist. Apparently it was sore from the exertion of all that beating.

Jesus Christ, Harvey was going to kill him.

“Now,” Mike whispered fiercely. 

Harvey didn’t miss a beat.

“Buddy,” he bellowed loudly across the sidewalk. A few people looked at him irritatedly. It appeared more people were disturbed by his loud voice than had noticed the atrocity that just occured. “Do I know you from Parks & Weller? Meyers, isn’t it?”

“No, that’s not me.” The man dropped his weapon and walked over to Harvey, looking puzzled. He did a quick once-over of Harvey’s cocky grin and expensive suit, and his hand rose for a handshake before he’d even finished his next sentence. “You work for Parks and Weller?”

“On occasion,” Harvey said, melting a laugh into his voice. He was a professional bullshitter after all. He could cash in on an asshole’s greed like no other. 

After receiving a slightly sweaty business card, Harvey let his smarmy small talk go on autopilot. Harvard. Pearson Hardman. Whiskey. Sports cars. The guy was such a fucking cliche that distracting him was something Harvey could do in his sleep.

Over the jackass’s shoulder, he saw Mike slip up to the girl, hands up. There was another guy there, a publically owned construction slave who had crept away from his worksite to help. They both cowered away from Mike in his expensive suit until he sank to his knees on the ground, talking fast. He hurriedly unbuttoned his collar to show them something on his chest, and they relaxed. Mike subtly nodded his head back at Harvey, and the construction guy looked over at the pair of them with a glare. 

Meanwhile the foot traffic flowed around the huddled slaves, utterly indifferent to the blood, the hushed voices, the stories of the people trampled beneath their polished shoes.

There was a beat of silence and Harvey realized he was supposed to fill it, so with effort he focused back on the guy in front of him. It only took a few more minutes of mindless, loathsome banter before Harvey felt Mike slip into place beside him. Harvey risked another glance over the asshole’s shoulder. The girl was now on her feet, the bleeding somehow stopped. She looked pale, but her eyes were now dry. Harvey saw her drop something crinkly and yellow into a nearby garbage bin, and he had to suppress a smile. He recognized that wrapper. It was one of the organic power bars he had bought that week. 

The conversation ended with a vague implication that Pearson Hardman might have an opening for a chance encounter on the street. “Now, isn’t fate a funny thing?” the man said, clapping Harvey hard on the shoulder before strutting away, beaming.

It sure was, Harvey agreed, feeling his smile become brittle as the man walked away. Although this prick might find it less funny when he woke tomorrow morning to discover the full force of Harvey Specter turned against him. The only grim satisfaction that chased away the stomach-churning disgust was imagining all the ways Harvey could end the career of the man whose business card was currently crumpled in his pocket.

“Walk away now,” Mike hissed between his teeth, and Harvey quickly complied. He didn’t miss how Mike fell into step slightly behind him, eyes downcast… he was playing the role of a slave now, not a free man. The scene had shifted, the character had changed.

“Now hit me,” Mike whispered, hunched over into a much smaller man than the one who had strode out of the office that morning. 

“What?” Harvey gasped. He turned, concerned, and put a hand on Mike’s shoulder. To his horror, Mike staggered under the contact as if he’d been struck, curling into himself and bringing his arms up around his head. 

Harvey looked up, bewildered, and then realized that they were being watched. Not by any of the lunch break professionals, but by the girl in the bloody shirt and the bone-thin construction worker. They were both looking at Mike with expressions that were sad and bitter and knowing, but not suspicious. They were seeing what they had expected to see happen to a slave, a well-dressed pet, who had left his master’s side without permission.

Getting the hint, Harvey glowered and grabbed Mike’s arm, dragging roughly him out of sight. He waited until they were round the corner and down an alley before releasing Mike, then backing away quickly, hands in the air. 

“Are you okay?” he asked, ducking his head to look at Mike. He needed to know that that little scene hadn’t just triggered something in Mike, awoken memories of darker times. 

But when Mike raised his head there was a smile on his face, small and hard and glinting. 

“Thanks,” he said, exhaling heavily and wiping the hair off his forehead. “I was able to get her some gauze and antibiotic cream. Hopefully he ignores her til she gets home, she should be able to get another slave to help her put it on.”

“I… where did you get all that crap? Do you just carry it with you all the time?”

Mike just blinked at Harvey, then gave a little smirk and turned to go, shrugging.

“By the way, your medicine cabinet is out of Band Aids,” he called behind him as he strode into the weak winter sunlight.

That night was another Mike Milestone. The first time Mike ever bared any part of himself in front of Harvey, pulling down his t-shirt to reveal the neat, rounded slave code tattoo just below his collarbone. The dark blue ink was stark against his pale skin, forever marking him as something the world would always see as less.

The world was wrong.

Harvey took the gift for what it was, thanking him solemnly and then carefully opening his arms for a brief hug if Mike wanted it. Mike hesitated for a breath, then wrapped his arms tight around Harvey, burying his face into Harvey’s shoulder with surprising intensity. 

Harvey didn’t break contact until Mike did, just held him in the dark warmth of the living room, watching the city twinkle below them. 

And although the next morning they were back to their casual, cutting jokes and teasing over burnt toast, he was happy to admit that no question, that quiet moment was his favorite Mike Milestone of all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it! Let me know what you thought <3
> 
> Tbh this was one of the scenes that popped into my brain and inspired me to write this entire fic


End file.
